Survival in the age of surveillance
The Guardian has a list of 18 tips to ‘survive’ (i.e. be safe) in an age where everyone wants to know everything about you — so that they can package up your data and sell it to the highest bidder.
On the internet, the adage goes, nobody knows you’re a dog. That joke is only 15 years old, but seems as if it is from an entirely different era. Once upon a time the internet was associated with anonymity; today it is synonymous with surveillance. Not only do modern technology companies know full well you’re not a dog (not even an extremely precocious poodle), they know whether you own a dog and what sort of dog it is. And, based on your preferred category of canine, they can go a long way to inferring – and influencing – your political views.Mozilla has pointed out in a recent blog post that the containers feature in Firefox can increase your privacy and prevent 'leakage' between tabs as you navigate the web. But there's more to privacy and security than just that.
Here’s the Guardian’s list:
A bit of a random list in places, but useful all the same.
- Download all the information Google has on you.
- Try not to let your smart toaster take down the internet.
- Ensure your AirDrop settings are dick-pic-proof.
- Secure your old Yahoo account.
- 1234 is not an acceptable password.
- Check if you have been pwned.
- Be aware of personalised pricing.
- Say hi to the NSA guy spying on you via your webcam.
- Turn off notifications for anything that’s not another person speaking directly to you.
- Never put your kids on the public internet.
- Leave your phone in your pocket or face down on the table when you’re with friends.
- Sometimes it’s worth just wiping everything and starting over.
- An Echo is fine, but don’t put a camera in your bedroom.
- Have as many social-media-free days in the week as you have alcohol-free days.
- Retrain your brain to focus.
- Don’t let the algorithms pick what you do.
- Do what you want with your data, but guard your friends’ info with your life.
- Finally, remember your privacy is worth protecting.
Source: The Guardian